AV1 vs HEVC vs H.264 in 2026: Real Encode Benchmarks on Real Content
We encoded the same 40-clip test corpus through three codec pipelines and scored every output with VMAF. Here's what the efficiency gains actually look like — and when AV1 isn't worth it.
Codec marketing claims — “50% bandwidth savings!” — rarely survive contact with a real content library. We built a controlled test: 40 clips spanning high-motion action, low-light grain, talking-head footage, and screen content, each encoded at five bitrate targets across libx264, libx265, and libsvt-av1. Then we scored every output with VMAF and plotted the rate-distortion curves.
Here’s what we found — and the surprising places where the newest codec loses.
The Rate-Diffusion Results (1080p, VMAF-scored)
Bitrate │ H.264 VMAF │ HEVC VMAF │ AV1 VMAF │ Winner
──────────┼────────────┼───────────┼──────────┼─────────────
500 kbps │ 62.1 │ 71.4 │ 78.9 │ AV1 (+27%)
1.5 Mbps │ 81.3 │ 86.8 │ 90.2 │ AV1 (+11%)
3.0 Mbps │ 89.7 │ 92.4 │ 94.1 │ AV1 (+5%)
6.0 Mbps │ 94.8 │ 96.2 │ 96.7 │ Marginal
12.0 Mbps │ 97.9 │ 98.3 │ 98.5 │ Parity
The takeaway is context-dependent: AV1’s advantage lives at the bottom of the ladder. At sub-1.5Mbps — where mobile viewers on constrained connections actually land — AV1 delivers a double-digit quality edge. Above 6Mbps, all three codecs converge toward transparency and the efficiency argument evaporates.
Where AV1 Loses: Encoding Cost
Encoding time per 1080p60 minute (medium-equivalent presets):
libx264 : 1× (baseline)
libx265 : 4.2×
libsvt-av1 : 6.8× at preset 6, ~2.1× at preset 10 (visually competitive)
SVT-AV1’s speed presets have matured enormously — preset 10-11 produces VMAF scores within 1-2 points of preset 6 while encoding 3× faster. The days of “AV1 is unusably slow” are over, but you still pay 2× the CPU-hours of x264 for equivalent throughput.
The HEVC Middle Ground
HEVC remains the pragmatic default for platforms that need hardware-decode coverage on older devices — every Apple device since 2017 and most smart TVs decode HEVC in dedicated silicon, while AV1 hardware decode only became common in 2022+ chipsets.
Encoding Strategy Summary
- AV1 for the bottom 3 rungs of the ladder (≤1.5Mbps), where its efficiency edge is largest and decode battery cost matters least
- HEVC for mid/high rungs on Apple-dominant audiences
- H.264 retained as universal fallback — decode support is literally everywhere
Our complete clip corpus, encode settings, and VMAF spreadsheets are published at EncodeLab Media - Video Codec Benchmarks & Encoding Pipelines.